M. Iriskulov, A. Kuldashev a course in Theoretical English Grammar Tashkent 2008

THE FUNCTIONS OF ARTICLES IN TEXT 
The article is a function word, which means it has no lexical meaning and is 
devoid of denotative function. Semantically the article can be viewed as a 
significator, i.e. a linguistic unit representing some conceptual content without 
naming it. If analyzed in its relation to the conceptual reality, the article proves to 
be an operator, i.e. a marker of some cognitive operation, like identification, 

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classification, and the like. 
It is not a secret that articles often turn into stumbling blocks for students of 
English, especially for those whose first language is synthetic. Different language 
types represent different mentalities. Therefore, one of the ways to learn to use 
articles correctly is developing the necessary communicative skills through 
countless repetition, which can only be achieved in a corresponding language 
environment. Another way is trying to develop a system of rules governing the use 
of articles in the language by understanding the basic principles of their 
functioning. This is what we are going to do, though of course, both methods 
complement one another. A language student needs both theory and practice. 
As you know, there are two articles in English: the definite article "the" and 
the indefinite one "a". It has become a tradition to also single out the so-called 
"zero" article, which is found in the contexts where neither the definite nor the 
indefinite article is used. It is better to speak of the zero article rather than of the 
absence of the article for the same reason that we ascribe the zero marker to the 
"unmarked" member of the opposition. We speak of zero units in situations where 
the grammatical meaning needs to be made explicit. 
The answer to the question "what do we need articles for?" can't be too 
simple. We might have to enumerate quite a few functions articles can be used in. 
Some of them are common for all the three articles, others are only characteristic 
of individual function words. This is what we are going to speak of. 
The invariant function of all the articles (i.e. the function all of them are 
used in) is that of determination. Any human language has a system of devices 
used to determine words as parts of speech. In analytical languages the article is 
the basic noun determiner. In synthetic languages, like Ukrainian and Russian the 
same function is performed by inflexions. 
e.g. Read the poem and comment on determiners: 
Twas brilling, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe. 
All mimsy were the borogoves, 
And the mome raths outgrabe. 
The second function the articles can be used in is that of the theme-and